Cloud Computing is a relatively new concept. While the term “cloud” had been used as a metaphor for the Internet for a long time, the term Cloud Computing in the modern sense was first publicly used by the Google’s Eric Schmidt, back in the 2006.

Cloud is a modern concept, whose intensive development takes place right now. Therefore, it suffers criticisms that are somewhat reasonable, but often exaggerated. Skepticism and financial interests are mixed. The companies that are leaders in the development of Cloud Computing technology, such as Google, have some large competitors who have no qualms about smear campaigns.

The essence of Cloud Computing is that you no longer need conventional software or hardware. The request for the hardware is minimal – you can work on a smartphone, tablet, notebook… You can also use the weakest and cheapest PC configuration on the market. At the same time you are not limited to one device: you can access your files from anywhere.

You do not have to worry about compatibility of hardware and software. Instead of bulky, burdening software, there are various SaaS, PaaS and IaaS available to you. You do not need to install anything, just sign up and you can immediately start using the selected package. Nothing can be simpler or cheaper than this.

Work is done quickly and easily. All you need is a web browser and internet access.

Necessity of internet access could be a problem, people say. What if you run out of connection? This issue will be (in the developed part of the world already is) obsolete. The possibility of losing your internet connection will be equal to the possibility of power cut. Imagine a person or company that gives up an electrical equipment, because sometimes there can be a power outage. “When the power is off I can not turn on my computer, so I better write down everything in a notebook…” It is ridiculous, but there are such examples. Take the wireless telephone for example - 20-30 years ago they were a kind of luxury. Now they are really cheap and widely available. But still, in some households, you can find antique telephones with dials, because – they work without electricity! Those people disregard the fact that not one phone will work when there is no electricity at the telephone exchange. Never mind that even the cheapest wireless phone has a phone book, answering machine, call ID… Old ones were better, but they no longer make such ones, what a pity!

Maybe someone will speak out against cloud computing in the same manner for 20 years. But then the whole world will be in the clouds.

Soon after that on various IT blogs headlines like Google’s Blogger outage makes the case against a cloud-only strategy (article from the pen of the Microsoft team) have appeared. Different articles shared the skepticism regarding the functionality of other Google products, such as Chrome OS, which is fully based on the “cloud”. They threw a shadow on the announced ChromeBook. A one day issue of Blogger was marked as the beginning of the end of the Google era.

At the same time, informations about an insidious campaign launched by Facebook leaked to the public. Prominent IT bloggers were engaged in order to show Google in an unfavorable light. Although Facebook targets the problem of user privacy (this is quite a painful issue for both companies), from a similar perspective with a negative connotation, the discussion focussed on Blogger.

What actually happened was not a great debacle at all. In last few years, similar things have happened to almost all of the major blogging platforms. Blogger appeared to be the most reliable all the time. The only alternative which can be argued that is better than Blogger is WordPress – with a paid hosting (but, depending on the hosting providers, this solution can range from very good, to even much worse than those offered by free platforms such as Blogger).

Besides being free and, therefore, available to everyone, Blogger offers its users a range of wonderful features. Even people without technical knowledge can design their own blogs using the Template Designer. Real designers can modify or write a brand new CSS and HTML code. Also, on the Internet you can find thousands of themes, originally made for WordPress, that was adapted for Blogger. When it comes to gadgets – there is no limit: you can choose among the myriad of existing and – if you know how and want to – you can make your own.

A single blog can have up to 100 authors. They can not register themselves, blog admin must send them invitations.

Blogger also supports PPC ads (Google AdSense, etc.). For comparison, if you have a free hosted blog on WordPress, it will not be allowed. Some other platforms – LiveJournal, MySpace etc – put their own ads in user’s blogs!

Blogger announced many innovations this year. Basically it is a modernization of the platform, which will now support CSS3, HTML5, AJAX… The result, I believe, will not only reach the level at which is currently WordPress. Blogger will, in some ways, become more modern than others. We can already see a hint of the future appearance of blogs. Dynamic Views are enabled: select any blog on Blogger, add “/view” in the URL and take a look.

I use Blogger for two years and I am perfectly satisfied. This was the first time that I could not publish an article. One single day. I think that this is not a sufficient reason for migration. What do you think?

First, let’s list some of the open source projects linked with business (as I have mentioned above, we are not going to analyze open source tools and frameworks yet, we are just talking about business tools!)

CMS: WordPress, Alfresco, Joomla, Drupal etc.
DMS: Alfresco, OpenKM, KnowledgeTree etc.
ERP: OpenERP, OpenBravo, JFire, Adempiere, Erp 5 etc.
SHOP: osCommerce, Zen Cart, Magento, OpenCart, PrestaShop etc.
CRM: SugarCRM, OpenERP, vtiger etc.

Now, to apologize to those whose favorite solutions are left out. It isn’t because I don’t think of them as good solutions, but because I still didn’t have the chance to use them.

From now on, I will talk about each of the mentioned solutions separately.

Alfresco - Open Source ECM

Benefits of open source tool:

• lower initial investment, since costs of licenses are either very low or the licenses aren’t paid at all, because not only the company behind the project is involved in development, but the community as well

• transparency – if you purchase open source solution, it’s development can be continued by anyone interested in it, even the buyers themselves. There is no chance that the problem of tool supplier will leave you without further support and development.

• buyers can develop modules of open source tools on their own, under the condition they have the resources needed (companies with IT sections)
  

  OpenERP - Open Source ERP

• bugs are repaired faster since the repair is done by a community, and after that all buyers are provided with patches

• the level of safety is higher because the community works on removing safety holes that are visible to everyone

• buyers can change supplier at any given moment if they are dissatisfied  and find another one from any place in the world

Drawbacks of open source tool:

• documents can often be incomplete and not updated, which makes it easier to develop a problem. Then, you have to search for a solution through the community, which can be frustrating since buyers need the solution immediately

• support can be a problem because many provide services of implementing  and maintaining open source systems without being sufficiently equipped to do so

• users’ interface in open source solution is often put in the background which brings about situations where we have to work hard on it to get satisfying solutions

This was a short list of reasons pro and con open source. In the period that is coming I will deal with these items even more, but for now, just listing them is enough.

Like every other morning, your alarm clock reminds you that you have to leave your warm bed and head off to work. You take a look at the street, it’s cold, it’s foggy, it’s raining… A journey to the office isn’t an easy task: nervous drivers, crowded city buses. Grimed faces of your co-workers are the first thing you will see when you enter your office. Or even worse, it will be the face of a friendly co-worker, the office clown who will spend half an hour telling you all about his weekend.

How many times have you wondered how nice it would be if someone could make your wish come true and let you work from you quiet and warm room? Is it just a part of your imagination or are you a step away from making your wish a reality? Development of information technology is making the dream of working from home more and more real.

Work from Home - living room comfort

Development of mobile hardware, innovative software, development of online services, etc. can have influence on simplifying and enabling working from your home. All you really need is a computer and Internet connection, and you can do all of you work from your home office. There are many benefits of working from your home, besides simply having a few more hours to sleep before you start working.

You can set your alarm clock to any time you want, or not even set it at all. There is no mental tension of working from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. You avoid stress you would usually go through on the way to work, and you don’t have any costs of transportation. You can start working after you have breakfast, drink your coffee and collect enough energy and concentration to do your job right. You can take a break whenever suits you the best. You are working in a familiar, pleasant environment. Whenever you feel like you can’t concentrate, you can get up, go to another room, relax, and come back when you feel ready to continue your work. You can work when you feel the most productive, even if it is at 2 a.m. Using modern online software (project and document management systems) you can still be connected with your co-workers, you can use any document that you need, keep up the workflow that is important to your company.

There is no one standing behind your back, watching your every move, so you can use your time to read the newspapers, check forums you are interested in, talk to some people from your line of work, because each seemingly unimportant thing can give you an excellent idea that you could later transform into a creative business solution. If you are one of the people who lake to lie down and relax, no one can blame you for it. Or if you need fresh air, and a walk, or some type of physical activity. It is easier to look at​ business problems from a different point of view if you step back a little in order to gain some other perspective.

Yet, you have to be aware that you must show good results, but you still have the luxury of not having   anyone who can check how you accomplish these results. It means you will have to prevent your inmates from interrupting you while you work, switch off your TV, phones, “gtalk”, “skype” and other appliances that could disturb you. You must be aware of your deadlines and respect them; you must set your priorities, and make a schedule. If you are working, then work for real, because even working from home is a job which implies effort and brings you profit.

Work from Home - you don’t worry about your kids, you work

Even though there are many positive sides to working from your home, there is also much criticism of this way of working. It usually refers to differences between industries, because not each of them allows working from home. Some criticism is pointed at how different people can be, since some people can’t motivate themselves for work. However, we can’t deny the results of a research which show how this kind of work increases productivity from 10 to 40 percent, reduces expenses of working space, as well as costs of transportation, increases the number of right decisions for 50 percent and it increases satisfaction with work, flexibility and synchronizing your personal life with you business life.

It is exactly why the information that 68 percent of employers forbid this way of working is discouraging. Many employers don’t even see this way of working as a potential possibility for hiring employees. Especially today, in the age of modern business, when each innovation is a way of achieving advantage in comparison to competition and, by using development of modern information technologies, a way of strengthening your position in instable market conditions.

But still, do all jobs provide the luxury of working from home?

Digital Fingerprint

Later on, that same fingerprint started to be used as one of the largest standards and guarantees of safety. So, people are still using the same thing, but the level of intelligence and sophistication has increased over time.

By signing a certain document, people state that what they have signed was true. But each of us has, at least once, found themselves in a situation when we wondered – can someone forge and abuse my signature? If it really is possible, what would happen if someone actually did it?

That is why banks, for example, have a high level of encrypting their information during electronic transactions. Every user has their own e-banking PIN code, as well as their own certificate, which protects both them and the bank from unauthorized access to the account, where money could be directed to some other location. And when this concept began to function, everyone had their doubts about the functionality of its reach. Not so much because they honestly doubted in its technological validity, and especially not because they doubted the justification for using it, but simply because it represented something new and unknown, something that demanded changes in people’s work and behavior.

Digital Signer

In modern world, when money doesn’t take the first place on the list of things we are short of, but time does (even the time needed to earn some extra money) – we often find ourselves in a situation where we have to lose valuable time on signing certain documents. The signing is a simple banality, but it has to be done. And if that single document has more than one copy, and you have to sign each of them, then it is really a big waste of time. If this kind of situation repeats itself each day, then we are talking about a great deal of lost time. When we put this into numbers, we get an amount of a solid yearly salary that some workers actually have. Is there anyone of us who is so rich that they can just throw away a salary of a potentially good and loyal worker? And, in addition to that, so rich to pay for the ink which lead to such an expense in the first place?

As a company, with all its good and less good sides, which is a pioneer in the field of electronic business available even to the smallest companies, we have felt directly responsible to do something regarding problems mentioned above. We gave you the opportunity to work in an office of the 21st century.  In an office where you can have your accountant, your secretary and your sales specialist all at the same time. They are all close by and always available (they, as well as the results of their work) – and you can enjoy it all from your office while drinking coffee.  But, suddenly, a document that needs to be signed appears.

Now what?

As you are probably already used to this process, now you have to print the document, sign it, scan the signed document and put it into the system, then send the original via post office, etc. Does it have to go that way?

Of course NOT!

It is exactly why we added a possibility to use digital signature to our online document management system – OrganizedDocs. It is much simpler to sign the document described above by using this digital signature. All you have to do is open the document, insert your card into the card reader, click on “Sign”, then send the signed document to a certain e-mail or fax number and, finally, store the electronically signed document. You can even print it, if there is a need for that.

Online Business Deals

It may seem as if the two processes described have the same number of tasks that need to be performed, but the time of performing the tasks differ drastically. Now you can even have hundreds of documents, with many same copies. All you have to do is to set certain rules and choose a place in your online office where these documents will be stored.

Thanks to the set rules your documents will be automatically signed (there will be no need for you to click “Sign” on each document that needs to be signed). And one more thing – in this kind of system, with digital signature, it doesn’t matter where you are, you can smoothly run your business and do all of your business processes without any setbacks.

Let’s say that every executive or person in charge have had a situation where they needed to take a trip away from the office. And then, while they were away, a document had to be signed. It’s a situation that creates a problem for you. Once again you have to lose precious time. But with the help of OrganizedDocs and its new functionality of digital signature it’s no longer important in which part of the world you are at the moment, just as long as you have Internet access and OrganizedDocs. You can electronically sign any document and avoid becoming company’s bottleneck.

Smart Card Reader

There is also a possibility for all of your employees who are using OrganizedDocs document management system to log in into the system, but without using their user name and password. It can also be done through their digital identification. That can bring additional level of security. It’s not that easy to still a card as to still a password, don’t you think?

So, once again, welcome. But not to the future, since everything we have talked about is available now. Therefore, welcome to the present!

Oh I almost forgot? How to get that digital certificate? Well, that’s a entire new story to tell, but don’t be afraid, it’s easy, I’ll let you know how…soon.

OrganizedDocs - online document management system for S&M businesses

My spirit went from excitement to desperation and back. In one moment I thought someone is playing with us! Why, what we did?! Team was nervous as well. They were wondering what they did wrong to be punished like this?

But, I guess this is pretty common situation when new product is to be released to the market. Even if you think you thought of everything and even if you think you have everything ready, something always needs to be done.

Well, we finally managed to launch it and, oh boy, I must say, trill is enormous. If you could only see those happy faces! Developers are showing off in the office and amongst their friends, QA finally have time for a coffee, marketing & sales are eager to start selling it to earn commission and me…ah…me…

I cannot sleep. Waking up early in the morning to check emails, write articles, send proposals, write down ideas how to promote the product, falling a sleep over my laptop. Not to mention that google analitics is my favorite web site! I was hoping when we launch I could get some peace after all this fuss. I was wrong. So wrong. My battle just started actually!

Fight for the better life

Building the project was an easy part, now we need to sell it and earn money. That’s the real battle. Select appropriate people for sales and marketing (ah marketers, I think everyone claims to be marketing expert these days!) is more difficult than i thought. It is fairly easy to sell commodity product, but selling software is another story pal. Sales people needs to know how to use the product, what for it is made, how to benefit from it etc…

Another process of learning and another battle in front of us all. I guess we all knew when we started this war that it will not be won only by wining one battle. Weapons are cleaned, minds are bright and sharp and we are bravely charging once again into the bloody battle against life…or for the better life.

I’ll be posting battle reports from time to time here so you can see how it goes. I hope it will be helpful to all of you out there sharing the same dream as ours.

Oh, almost to forget, please check out www.organizeddocs.com and share your ideas how to make it better. Please notice that if you register, I will be able to get some sleep…so, be gentle and put me to bed by registering on www.organizeddocs.com.

Many world leaders are expected to appear at this ceremony. This event is expected to be the most spectacular event after the

World EXPO 2010 logo

Olympics at Beijing in 2008. Chinese president Hu Jintao will lead the opening. When we consider how much attention the Chinese devoted to the organization of the previous Olympics, we can only guess how big a spectacle this exhibit is going to be.

This is China’s first time to host the exhibit, on which over 58 billion dollars was spent. For comparison only, on Beijing Olympic Games 42 billion dollars was spent.

It is estimated that this year’s world exhibit is going to attract around 70 million visitors.

We will mention some of the invites who will attend the opening of the exhibit: French president Nicolas Sarkozy, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, the  European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. The representative for our country is going to be Vuk Jeremić, the chief of diplomacy.

Among the participants are Jackie Chan, the pianist Lang Lang, the star of the opera, Andrea Bochelli and the actress Halle Berry.

When it comes to the security measures, entrance will be allowed only to a few employees, journalists and VIP personnel, and there will be a helicopter circling around the pavilion, supervising the event.

EXPO is very popular among the citizens of Shanghai, although some of them are dissatisfied because of the security measures and

EXPO 2010 corporate joint pavilion

the invasion on their privacy. There is police on every corner of the town where pavilions can be found, and the contents of people’s bags are being checked in all of the hotels and subway stations.

We believe it is not easy to handle all of that army and police, but it is also very important that all goes in the best order, so that the Chinese can show they are well-equipped to have everything under control in an extremely delicate social situation.

World exhibits have been being held every year since the middle of the 19th century, and the goal is to show technical achievements of the humanity.

More on events during the exhibit can be found on the formal site.

“Ten years ago a person could live a completely normal life without commitment to be connected with .com sites daily. We could do everything what we wanted without using internet. But today is obviously that .com has become important part of our lives and the persons who don’t have internet they don’t have the most important information“, said Robert Atkins from Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) company.

Domain names system was introduced on the Internet in January 1985th.
Beside .com, the most important domains are .edu, .gov, .net and .org.

Number of tools designed for project management that currently exist in this world is enormous. Project management tools has document management system, milestones, meetings, several methods of communication (messages, email’s, video calls, etc.), and the possibility to correspond with your clients (which is often essential).

To successfully evaluate some of the tools, it is absolutely necessary to understand that there is no tool which is designed to support the absolute needs of all the possible industries that exist. Since we are on the IT highway, I’ll try to describe the above tools from the perspective of software development.

Basecamp

basecamp

I don’t think I should spend time explaining you about the popularity of a basecamp. The reason for this popularity lies in the absolute simplicity of it’s use. According to the authors themselves, basecamp is designed as a tool for project management for designers. For this reason they tried to be as simple as possible tool to use. Its greatest power lies in the ultra-simple messaging system. Each message is in fact a post on the forum, where participants in the conversation leave their comments and documents.

In addition to the messaging system, basecamp has options for creating and milestone, tasks, tracking time and writeboard. Writeboard is their version of the wiki pages. Although not a classic wiki, final purpose is the same. Since such software tool is not very useful to a software developer (or at least I do not see how it is) I will not describe it further here, see by yourself what writeboard actually is.

The biggest flaw from software development perspective is the lack of support for version control, lack of bug-tracking and general lack is the calendar. However the calendar can easily be compensated by some other solutions, again, the impression is that calendar should be part of it.

Conclusion: basecamp is the ideal tool for managing design projects, possibly marketing, and for excellent communication with clients that don’t have advanced knowledge in IT.

GForge Advanced Server

The solution that we at the E-75 are currently using is GForge advanced server. This tool absolutely satisfies most of the needs in software development. It allow you to create your own tracker where you can define your fields and their values, plus default tracker set will be enough for 90% of the needs. For each project you have a special forum, the basic document management, news section, wiki, subversion, build system (Cruise Control is used) and perhaps the strongest trump card – generating reports.

GForge Advanced Server

I’ll describe a few important things that contributed the most to a decision to use GForge here at E-75. The first thing is the great task tracking system. GForge by default offering most popular trackers such as to-do, bugs, patches, support, feature requests, plus you can create your own. Also, for each tracker, you can add fields that you need (e.g. field for time estimates). Another important thing for us was the connecting task from the tracker with SVN commits. Each commit is simply connected to the task so that each code change is easier to follow and we know exactly why and when changes were made.

Tasks have very nice time tracking option. However, there is a bug – rounding of 30 minutes is not exactly accurate and time gets lost. Another good thing for the intractable and lazy developers is the ability to define the workflow for the task status. I believe that everyone are aware of problems with discipline when using these tools, where developers simply ignore requests for accurate status updates of their assigned tasks. These workflows will force developers to keep up with the rules.

Another thing that we were excited about GForge when we start evaluating it is report generation. There is a standard set of reports, and you can add your own if necessary. Some of the most important reports for us are downloads report, a road map, tracker report and time tracking report.

Maybe for some of you it does not really matter, but GForge has a release management, which can be very useful when working on a project that has an active development after its initial release.

Like any software, even this is not without flaws. Besides small bugs (which in turn, knows to be irritating), it lacks a centralized calendar. Tasks management by e-mail is supported, but it takes a little bit of time to set it up properly. Learning curve may be a little longer, but for larger projects is certainly worth it. For smaller projects (a few months, one developer, etc.). this is overkill. There is too much “bureaucracy”, that a small team or small project will ever need.

Conclusion: excellent tool for large software projects, medium and large teams – others, find something simpler, don’t make your life more complicated than it is.

Trac & Subversion

Those who are familiar with the Trac knows that without Subversion it is just a toy. Together, they form a serious player in the field of project management tool. Trac is characterized by the simplicity of its interface. Pleasant for the eye, developers can easily adapt themselves to work with it. Since it is open source, you can modify it as desired to make it work as you need.

trac & subversion

Trac has a wiki page (does anyone use wiki pages? I am wondering, whether anyone reads those pages at all?), road map, milestones and ticket system – similar to task list in GForge. Ticket can be related to a milestone, which contributes to easier tasks and bugs monitoring.

Subversion can be integrated with it, which means you can use trac svn browser, and the commits can be linked with appropriate tickets. As I said, that option is one of the most important things, because it makes code change tracing much easier.

Trac also has report generation, but there is one major problem. It is not possible as in GForge, to use a simple interface to make a report. Instead, you need to be almost a hacker to accomplish this task. Ok, I know, it is for developers, etc., but to be forced to write some kind of SQL code and read bunch of literature to find out what’s in it, for me, it is unusable, regardless of the fantastic reports that you can make (you can even configure the color output, if you know CSS).

There is no automated build, there is no document management, no forums, no release management – yet, for a long time it was good enough for the 10 projects that I managed with it.

Conclusion: Trac & Subversion is a great software tool for small teams and small projects. Also, it is excellent tool for learning and perfect tool for school projects.

Which is best? Obviously, all three described tools are very useful. Each dominant in its field, you just need to know where you belong. Each of them dominate in their domains, you just need to know where you belong.

]]> http://blog.e-75.rs/general/project-management-review-basecamp-vs-gforge-vs-tracsubversion/feed/ 15 http://blog.e-75.rs/general/project-management-review-basecamp-vs-gforge-vs-tracsubversion/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/e-75/it-highway/~3/pWfmwU5Lx0c/ http://blog.e-75.rs/smartphones/samsung-announce-bada-os/#comments Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:33:02 +0000 Ivan Mojsilovic http://blog.e-75.rs/?p=124 If you thought you saw everything in the world of smart phones, think again. A few days ago I ran into an article which says that Samsung released its operating system for smart phones named Bada (Bada on Korean language means ocean). The idea of Bada operating system is to provide rich feature set to a wider range of smart phones consumers worldwide.

For now, we do not know much about the operating system, and it’s UI framework for which the Samsung say that is the next generation UI framework. Samsung claim that they will release a Bada SDK  during December 2009.  and then we will be able to learn more about the system.

One brokerage company from Seoul, predicted that the market share WindowsMobile platform holding now, will be reduced to 50% next year and up to 20% by the end of 2012th. Until then, according to their predictions, Samsung will completely cut the Symbian operating system market share. Smart phones based on Android platform should have about 30% market share, or over 10 kinds of models.

The future of Limo Foundation, which supports Samsung with several other manufacturers, remains unknown. Motorola and Vodafone already have two Limo based devices: Samsung M1 Vodafone 360 and Vodafone 360 Samsung H1. ]]> http://blog.e-75.rs/smartphones/samsung-announce-bada-os/feed/ 0 http://blog.e-75.rs/smartphones/samsung-announce-bada-os/